


Old Stories

by Miya_Morana



Series: An Owl in the Night [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-08 19:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miya_Morana/pseuds/Miya_Morana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one were Dean laughs his head off and Gabriel remembers the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Stories

Dean's laughing his head off. Of course, that was to be expected. Castiel's blinking at them. He hasn't said a single word since him and Dean arrived fifteen minutes ago. He's eyeing Sam with wary eyes. As if it was the younger Winchester's fault, really, that they got into this mess.

Dean seems to compose himself a little bit. He grabs Castiel's arm for support and looks back at Gabriel.

"So, hum," he says, trying to suppress laughter from his voice and failing miserably, "you're really gonna have an ass-baby then ?"

Gabriel's glare sets off another fit of laughter, and Sam puts a hand on his lover's arm to try and appease him, because he doesn't want his brother dead. Well, not yet, at least. If Dean doesn't stop making fun of... of the _situation_, he might revise his judgment on that.

"Dean! Dude, stop laughing for a minute, okay!"

"Oh, come on, Sammy, it's an ass-baby!" Dean says, wiping a little tear of laughter from his eye. "How does that even work, anyway?"

Sam frowns and looks at Gabriel. The archangel's eyes are still throwing daggers at Dean, lips pinched in a thin, angry line.

"Gabriel?" he asks carefully. The archangel looks at him, his eyes softening instantly as he turns his undivided attention to what Sam wants to ask him. "Gabriel, how _does_ it work? I mean, your body's nor really equipped for -"

"My body isn't human, Sam." Gabriel's voice is almost a whisper. He looks briefly at Dean and Castiel, like he's reluctant to talk about this in front of them. "If I had merely taken a human vessel, my siblings would have been able to find me."

"So what, you made yourself a cylon body to download into?" Dean's stopped laughing, and despite the humor of his words, he looks genuinely curious.

Gabriel pulls a face. "Do you really think that if angels, or even only archangels, could make themselves tailor suit vessels, Michael and Lucifer would try so hard to get you two boys to say yes?"

Gabriel often talks about the past, but only ever to tell them stories of the tricks he pulled and the people he duped. He almost never says anything about himself. Not anything that _matters_. And Sam has to ask. "So how'd you do it?"

"I went to see an old friend," Gabriel sighs. He leans back against the motel room's wall, fisting his hands in his pockets. "You better sit down, this is gonna be a long story. Do you know what pagan gods are?"

Dean frowns, but sits on the edge of his bed. Sam stays at the archangel's side, leaning one shoulder against the wall next to the archangel so that he can look at him. Castiel just stands there, but Gabriel doesn't seem to mind as he starts talking.

"When Daddy created this world, He didn't build it or mold it. He _wished_ it into existence. He wished the high mountains and the deep vales, He wished the dark forests and the clear blue oceans, the dry deserts and the cold ice fields. I don't know if He was careless or if it was all part of some ineffable plan of his, but He left pockets of energy scattered around the world. And when Men came to these places, with their beliefs, their gods and superstition, some of them tapped into that energy and _created_ the things in which they believed. Often, it would be just a small creature or a spirit, and some of these evolved to be the things that you two hunt and destroyed. But sometimes, just sometimes, the pagan gods these Men prayed to would come into existence.

"Now these gods, though far from being as powerful as Dad, have the ability to _create_ things, real things not just tricks and illusions. Some of them abused these powers so, back in the days Daddy still cared about this world, He sent four of his sons, his favorites, to sort out which ones could stay and which ones were trouble. So, flaming swords in hand, we came down to Earth and did our Father's work.

"It wasn't easy, judging who was Good and who was Evil. Back in the days, most of them were in a sort of morally grey area, and some of the gods bargained for their lives. But others were dark and ferocious, and they were all the creations of Men's deepest fears and angers. I think this was the moment when Lucifer doubted our Father's creation for the first time."

Gabriel stops then, eyes dropping down to the grayish carpeting of the room. Dean's looking at Gabriel, really looking, like he's seeing him for the first time, seeing the archangel and not the snarky trickster god. It's the first time Gabriel's dropped his mask in front of the older Winchester.

Sam has seen it before, felt the unfathomable being that his lover really is. Sometimes, when they are laying in bed together, Gabriel resting his head on Sam's shoulder and tracing patterns on his skin, he would tell him stories of a time long past, and there would be something in his voice that would make his words more real than human words could ever be.

They never were personal, though, these stories. Never about Gabriel, never about his life before he became a Trickster. This is different, Sam can feel it. He can feel how deeply it's affecting the angel to open up like this, to be forced to remember. It's like a hand closing around his heart, sharp pain that isn't his, and for a moment he wonders how he can feel it so clearly, how he can really _feel_ how Gabriel does.

When the silence stretches for too long, Sam brushes his fingers against the archangel's hand, a gentle and intimate gesture through which he tries to convey reassurance and support. Hazel eyes lift to his face and Gabriel gives him a soft, grateful smile.

"So, anyway," he says, trying to get back to the story, "when I left home I went to see a goddess I had spared. I asked for her help and she took an oak tree trunk and carved it into a body, then she turned it into flesh and gave it the spark of life necessary for me to inhabit it. After that, she introduced me to her children as her son. Which was the truth in some way, she'd given me my earthling life.

"I lived at her brother's human court for a while, but things didn't turn out so well, and I left." Gabriel shrugs it off, like it's nothing important, but Sam just knows there's more to _that_ story. He isn't going to press it though, not now, not with Dean and Castiel listening to them.

Dean's slightly frowning from where he's sitting on the bed. "So, that pagan goddess thought it fun to equip you with baby-making parts, that's it?"

"Of course not!" Gabriel looks offended. "I would have been aware of that! No, Arianrhod did something tonight, something she shouldn't have been able to do, even though she's a fertility goddess, well, half-goddess anyway. But because my body isn't human she was able to change it somehow, and I have no idea how to undo it."

"Isn't abortion against God's law?" Dean smirks.

Gabriel looks shocked then, as if Dean had just punched him in the face. "Have you ever read Enoch? My Father had me _kill_ my half-human nephews and nieces! This," he gestures at his stomach area, "cannot be."

He grabs Sam's hand and looks away, and Sam glares at Dean. Can't his brother see how upset and freaked out the archangel is? What would Dean say if someone messed with _his_ body? Sam reassuringly squeezes Gabriel's hand. Castiel, who had been silent this whole time, tries to break the tension.

"I believe we are all too tired to talk of this in a reasonable way. He should get some rest, and hopefully things will make more sense tomorrow."

Gabriel nods and leaves the room. Sam gives a thankful look at Castiel and follows the archangel after mumbling "Good night." Nobody points out that angels don't need to sleep.

Sam catches up with Gabriel when he's entering their motel room. As soon as the door is closed, Gabriel's arms are wrapping around Sam's waist, his head buried in Sam's shirt. His distress washes over Sam in waves, and the hunter hugs Gabriel back as tight as he can, resting his cheek against the archangel's soft hair. He makes small, appeasing sounds as he rubs Gabriel's back in soothing circles. In all these months, he's never seen the archangel like that, never seen him as _vulnerable_.

"I hate her." Gabriel's voice is barely audible, muffled by Sam's shirt. "She gives me the thing I want the most, she gives me a _family_, just for the pleasure of watching me lose it one way or another."

"What happened?" Sam asks softly. "Between you and her, what happened to make her so angry?"

"I raised her son." Gabriel takes a deep breath. "She said it was my fault, that I had shamed her, but I didn't know, I swear I didn't know she wasn't a virgin when I suggested she became Math's new feet-holder. You see, Math was a strange god, his feet had to rest in the lap of a virgin all the time, except when he was at war, or he'd lose most of his powers. So I suggested Arianrhod could do the job. Except, when she stood over Math's magical staff, it revealed she was pregnant, and she instantly gave birth to a son. Old magic could do that kind of things.

"She abandoned him, denied him a name, the possibility to take arms, and the love of a human being. So I took him, raised him, and then I tricked his mother into giving him a name, weapons and love. Arianrhod called me Trickster then, and she managed to have me banished from Math's court."

Gabriel falls silent then, and Sam kisses the top of his head. The archangel's grip loosens a bit and Gabriel takes a step back, looks into Sam's eyes. "I hadn't thought about all this in a very long time." The angel sighs. He looks exhausted.

"Come in bed with me," Sam simply says. They climb in the large bed, not even bothering to undress, and Gabriel lays his head on Sam's shoulder.

Sam wraps his arms around the archangel, thinking about tall he stories he's just heard. One thing keeps coming back in his head. Gabriel wants a family. The last thing he thinks as he falls asleep is that he would love to give that to Gabriel, to give him a family.

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with the Mabinogi story, but let's assume that the truth was distorted over the centuries.


End file.
